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Nasturtium Sandwiches
Wash the fresh flowers and lay the petals in ice water for a few minutes.
Spread the bread with mayonnaise and place on a thick layer of the petals; or, omit the dressing and spread the petals on buttered slices. If possible, serve these sandwiches with a few of the fresh blossoms and leaves scattered loosely over the plate.
A two-ingredient sandwich that lives or dies on the quality of the flowers. Everything here is about sourcing and timing rather than technique.
- Use unsprayed flowersNasturtium (Tropaeolum majus) flowers and leaves are edible, but florist and garden-centre plants are routinely treated with systemic pesticides that cannot be washed off. Pick from your own garden or buy flowers sold specifically as edible.
- The ice-water soakA few minutes in ice water firms the petals and revives any that have gone limp; don't leave them long enough to go limp and waterlogged. Drain on a towel and pat dry, or the moisture will soak straight through the bread.
- Expect heat, not sweetnessNasturtium is not a mustard or a cress, but sits in the same broad order of plants and shares their pungent chemistry, so the petals carry a distinct peppery bite. A thick layer, as directed, is assertive; the round leaves are hotter still if you want to add one or two.
- BreadCut thin from a close-grained white loaf, crusts off, and butter to the edges. Butter on both slices, rather than mayonnaise, seals the bread against the damp petals and holds better if the sandwiches sit.
- MayonnaiseA kitchen of this period meant hand-whisked mayonnaise with raw yolk. Commercial jarred mayonnaise is made with pasteurised egg and is the sensible choice for something that will sit uncooked on a tea table.
- Assemble lateThese will not keep. Make them within an hour of serving and hold under a damp cloth in the refrigerator; petals bruise and bleed colour into butter overnight.
- YieldScale to the number of blossoms you have. Reserve a handful of whole flowers and leaves for the plate, as the book suggests, since the garnish is most of the point.
The Five Roses Cook Book was published by the Lake of the Woods Milling Company to sell flour, and its sandwich recipes reflect the afternoon-tea culture of Canadian households of the period, where the sandwich was judged on delicacy and appearance rather than substance. Nasturtiums were a fixture of the kitchen garden long before they were a garnish: the leaves and green seed pods were pickled as a domestic substitute for capers, and the plant's peppery flavour comes from the same glucosinolate chemistry that gives mustard and cress their bite. Its common name is a borrowing from Nasturtium, the botanical genus of watercress, applied because the taste is so similar, though the garden nasturtium is not a relation. Recipes for flower sandwiches, violet and rose as well as nasturtium, circulated widely in North American and British household manuals around the turn of the twentieth century, when tea-table cookery prized colour on the plate.